PAH-ICON Task Force

Type of task force

Disease & Speciality

Researching into the molecular mechanisms behind the pathobiology of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) as it applies to cellular and animal models and their responses to therapeutic strategies

2021 Annual Report

The International Consortium for Genetic Studies in PAH (PAH-ICON) continues to go from strength to strength with regular zoom meetings, and this year included a new series of Task Force webinars.

These webinars were initiated when the annual face-to-face symposium was suspended due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and have proved to be a great success and will likely continue into the future. Each webinar focused on a particular PAH-ICON Task Force with the first session, hosted by Professor Harm-Jan Bogaard, covering healthy carriers of BMPR2 mutations, including screening and research studies. A further session focused on TBX4 mutations included a family member introducing a new patient organisation, TBX4Life: developing an international family-driven initiative and research focus on TBX4

The sessions were organised in conjunction with the PVRI, were well attended and created many interesting discussions and leads for future genetic collaborations. It is only with the continued international collaborations and the set-up of PAH-ICON Task Forces, which are capable of generating thousands of samples and phenotype data from patients with idiopathic and heritable PAH, that we can learn more about the complicated genetic make-up of PAH.

We aim to be able to receive samples to our PAH-ICON biorepository in the coming year to enable the collation of international samples to allow the identification of ultra-rare PAH variants.

PAH-ICON also goes beyond genetics, with Task Forces on metabolomics, proteomics and epigenetics.

We are delighted to announce that PAH-ICON is now formally affiliated with PVRI. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between both parties confirming that PAH-ICON operates under the umbrella of the PVRI as a fully established Task Force. This will ensure our goal of furthering knowledge of the genetic architecture underlying PAH.

In 2022, our international guidelines for genetic testing in PAH under the PAH-ICON/PVRI banner will be published and will provide recommendations on genetic testing for patients and their relatives.

We look forward to a productive 2022 and our 3rd PAH-ICON Symposium in Athens following on from PVRI’s Annual World Congress.

PAH-ICON operates under the umbrella of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute as an official PVRI Task Force

You can visit the official website for PAH-ICON here.

2020 Annual Report

2nd Symposium for The International Consortium for Genetic Studies in PAH, in Lima 2-3 February 2020

Over 50 delegates attended the 2nd PAH-ICON/PVRI Symposium in Lima. The meeting consisted of one and a half days of presentations by PAH Task Force representatives and oral abstracts.

Several Task Forces have been set up to focus on specific areas, and the focus of this meeting was to establish aims and objectives and research planning for 2020. Abstracts were presented from around the world and detailed exciting examples of ongoing research of PAH genetics and genomics.

Discussions facilitated by the meeting included the following:

To increase the awareness and knowledge of participation in PAH genetic research.
To write international guidelines for genetic testing in PAH under the PAHICON consortium banner.
To identify core phenotype data to be collected by all centres.
Refine the Task Forces and their contributors.
Working groups to be defined for specific shorter term projects.

The consortium has now been running since 2016 with the first face-to-face meeting in May 2017.

Bi-monthly teleconferences allow for the continued international research collaboration and planning. We have an exciting series of webinars arranged for 2021.

It is imperative that only by collating our knowledge and resources that we can tackle the ongoing challenges in PAH such as understanding the contribution of common genetic variation to the clinical course of disease.

The PAH-ICON consortium biorepository will soon be able to receive international samples for sequencing and analysis and further progress will be made on the clinical phenotype database.

2019 Annual Report

The Genetic & Molecular Task Force held its 1st Symposium for the International Consortium for Genetic Studies in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), in Barcelona 2019, where over 140 delegates attended the inaugural PAH-ICON symposium.

The meeting consisted of two days of presentations by invited speakers in the field of genetics and genomics of pulmonary arterial hypertension. In addition, the meeting included oral and poster abstract presentations by investigators from around the world.

The audience learned about recent advances in PAH genetics, including the first announcement of three new genes underlying PAH.

On the afternoon of the second day, the Consortium discussed aims and objectives for the coming year that would be best tackled by international collaboration and networking in this rapidly evolving field.

Several more specific sub-Task Forces were established, whereby international collaborators will work together around priority areas. It was agreed that the group will meet annually to share results and to enable further networking between PH and pulmonary vascular disease professionals.

Topics presented included:

Genetics of pulmonary arterial hypretension across the lifespan.
Common variant analysis in PAH.
RNA-sequencing of peripheral blood in PAH.

Examples of Sub-Task Forces:

Genetics of Paediatric PAH.
ClinGen PAH Working Group, curating causal PAH mutations.
Functional Genomics Task Force.

Further work included:

Establishing an international registry of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD) cases with mutations in the EIF2AK4 gene.
Follow up of healthy BMPR2 (protein receptor gene) mutation carriers.
Sequencing of BMPR2 negative PAH families.
Twin studies in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Collaborative conclusions

It is clear that only international collaborations – which are capable of generating thousands of samples from patients with idiopathic and heritable pulmonary arterial hypertension – will have the statistical power to discover the complete genetic architecture of PAH.

It also only possible to address the major questions regarding the role of genetic variation in disease penetrance, phenotype and the clinical course of disease on this scale. The consortium aims to address these questions and continues to meet regularly by video conferencing to address these areas.

At the meeting, there was a real sense that we can better address the major outstanding questions in our field by working together collaboratively for the benefit of patients, scientific discovery, and the search for new treatments.

Further information